Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2018 May;143(5):2666. doi: 10.1121/1.5032326.
In a remote microphone (RM) system, a talker speaks into a microphone and the signal is transmitted to the hearing aids worn by the hearing-impaired listener. A difficulty with remote microphones, however, is that the signal received at the hearing aid bypasses the head and pinna, so the acoustic cues needed to externalize the sound source are missing. The objective of this paper is to process the RM signal to improve externalization when listening through earphones. The processing is based on a structural binaural model, which uses a cascade of processing modules to simulate the interaural level difference, interaural time difference, pinna reflections, ear-canal resonance, and early room reflections. The externalization results for the structural binaural model are compared to a left-right signal blend, the listener's own anechoic head-related impulse response (HRIR), and the listener's own HRIR with room reverberation. The azimuth is varied from straight ahead to 90° to one side. The results show that the structural binaural model is as effective as the listener's own HRIR plus reverberation in producing an externalized acoustic image, and that there is no significant difference in externalization between hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners.
在远程麦克风（RM）系统中，说话者对着麦克风讲话，信号被传送到听力受损听众佩戴的助听器。然而，远程麦克风的一个困难是，助听器接收到的信号绕过头部和耳廓，因此缺少了将声源外部化所需的听觉线索。本文的目的是处理 RM 信号，以改善通过耳机聆听时的外部化。该处理基于结构双耳模型，该模型使用级联的处理模块来模拟两耳间的强度差、两耳间的时间差、耳廓反射、耳道共振和早期房间反射。结构双耳模型的外部化结果与左右信号混合、听众自身的无回声头相关脉冲响应（HRIR）以及听众自身的 HRIR 加混响进行了比较。方位从正前方到 90°一侧变化。结果表明，结构双耳模型在产生外部化的声像方面与听众自身的 HRIR 加混响一样有效，并且听力受损和正常听力听众之间的外部化没有显著差异。
